San Luis CBP Officers Seize $623K in Hard Drugs

Release Date:

April 24, 2018

TUCSON, Ariz. – U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers arrested 4 U.S. citizens in connection to three separate failed drug smuggling attempts involving a total of nearly 159 pounds of methamphetamine and heroin through Arizona’s Port of San Luis.

Officers referred a 62-year-old man for an additional search of his KIA van as he attempted to enter the U.S. from Mexico on Saturday. A CBP canine alert to a scent it was trained to detect in multiple locations, which led officers to discover more than 46 pounds of meth, worth more than $139,000. The man was also carrying nearly 2,000 acetaminophen pills, worth an undetermined value.

Officers seized more than 46 poundsof meth as well as 2,000acetaminophen tablets

Sunday afternoon, officers referred a 20-year-old female driver and her 19-year-old female passenger for further inspection of a Chevy sedan. A canine alert led officers to more than 27 pounds of meth, with an estimated value of nearly $82,000, as well as more than 10 pounds of heroin, worth in excess of $176,000 from within all four door compartments.

Smugglers hid a combination of methand heroin within the doors of asmuggling vehicle

Monday afternoon, a CBP canine alert to a Chevy truck being driven by a 26-year-old man led to the discovery of over 75 pounds of meth. The drugs, worth nearly $226,000, were removed from the spare tire as well as the passenger side doors.

More than 75 pounds of meth wereremoved from the door panels as wellas spare tire of a smuggling vehicle

CBP officers seized the vehicles as well as the drugs. The subjects were all arrested and turned over to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection is the unified border agency within the Department of Homeland Security charged with the management, control and protection of our nation's borders at and between the official ports of entry. CBP is charged with keeping terrorists and terrorist weapons out of the country while enforcing hundreds of U.S. laws.